


To Sleep, Perchance To Die

by Suzie_Shooter



Category: Alex Rider - Anthony Horowitz
Genre: Dreams, Exhaustion, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-24
Updated: 2012-03-24
Packaged: 2017-11-02 11:24:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/368448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suzie_Shooter/pseuds/Suzie_Shooter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An exhausted Alex is on the run, but who will find him first? Train-based shenanigans.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Sleep, Perchance To Die

**Author's Note:**

> The title is a chapter heading nicked from Ian Fleming.

Endless vista of damp green countryside. Alex, slumped in the end seat of the carriage pulled the hood of his sweatshirt up to hide his face and let his head come to rest tiredly against the window.

He'd been awake too long, and been through too much, until he had reached a state where the outside world was just so much white noise, a buzzing in his ears and mind. Even now he was fighting to stay awake, knowing he wasn't safe, not yet. They could still track him here.

Alex touched the bag resting between his feet containing the stolen - no, repossessed - processor, reassuring himself it was still there. It had become a compulsive movement, checking every few minutes, as if it might have been spirited away since he last looked.

Unnecessary. If they caught up with him now, they wouldn’t just take it back and politely leave him alive. 

Outside the Swiss landscape scrolled past, the rain-swept streets of the occasional village devoid of people, making him feel like an intruder in an empty world.

The seats stopped him getting a clear view of the others sharing the carriage, although he'd looked carefully when he'd slunk on board. There weren't many. An elderly couple, a group of teenage girls, a nun. No-one who looked a threat. Conversely, no-one who could help him should a threat manifest itself.

His eyes closed, involuntarily. So tired. Weary down to his bones. Cold, too, and knew this had little to do with the temperature of the train. Too long without food or proper rest.

So tired.

\--

_He was standing on a beach. Could feel the give in the firm, damp sand beneath his toes, could hear the soft swish of the waves. Warm sun on his back, distant cry of gulls. Had he been here before? It felt familiar, comforting. Someone was behind him. Someone who'd been waiting. Alex tried to turn his head, to see who it was. Found he couldn’t move._

\--

Freight cars, hurtling past the window. Alex jerked awake, heart pounding, disoriented. Outside, a seemingly endless series of rusty wagons barrelled past in the opposite direction.

Breathing returning to a less panicky state, he re-checked the bag, then peered round the seat to check the other occupants. All quiet. He could have only been out a few seconds at most. A dangerous lapse, nonetheless.

He made himself sit up straighter, shaking his head to clear it. His throat felt dry and sore. One of them had got hold of him earlier, vicious hands around his neck. He'd thought he was going to die.

Alex slid a hand round his throat, remembering. He'd managed to get a knee between them, force the man off. Bracing himself for the second assault, which never came.

Honestly hadn’t known about the metal reinforcement bars sticking out of the shattered concrete. 

_Blood seeping into concrete dust._

Alex blinked away the memory, concentrating on the scenery instead. They'd moved into dripping forestry, a dark expanse of trees broken only by the occasional muddy track.

Monotonous. Hypnotic.

Soothing.

\--

 _He was falling. Air screaming past his head, and he was scrabbling desperately for the ring of his parachute, couldn’t find it, couldn’t_ see _-_

_There was no parachute. He was going to die. Beneath, open ocean. So far below, he knew it would be like hitting concrete. And out here - no-one would ever know what had happened to him._

\--

"Fuck." Alex jolted awake a second time, let his head fall back against the seat, weakly. 

The train was pulling into a station, some small, anonymous town. Alex tried to see down the platform, work out if anyone was getting on, but it was a long train and he couldn’t tell. The girls at the end of the carriage got out. No-one came in. The train pulled out again in a screech of engineering.

He tucked his arms around himself, a semblance of comfort. Knew he was near the end of his endurance, that he'd be unlikely to survive having to fight for his life again. Sooner or later he'd have to get off the train. Find a place to hole up, make a plan to get his acquisition out of the country. 

Right now it all felt like too much effort. He pulled his feet up onto the seat, stuffed the bag with its vital cargo down the side and curled up in a ball.

\--

_The rattle of the train was an echo through his dreams, flick of the tracks spooling behind his eyes. He was on an underground train, packed with commuters, cramped, stifling. Through the crowd, a half-glimpsed face, and Alex was seized with the need to follow. Unsure whether the urgency was a need to stop something happening, or just a need to reach him. Pushing through the crowds in rising desperation, glimpses of his target, always just out of reach._

\--

Alex came to with a groan, limbs stiff, eyes prickly and unwilling to open. Groggy, it took him a good few seconds to realise something had changed. That the seat next to him was no longer empty.

Slowly, resignedly, he uncurled his body, looking round at the man who was regarding him, quietly impassive.

"Hello Alex."

"Yassen. Should have known they'd send you." 

Alex sighed, although the sudden spike of adrenaline had cleared his head a little. If he could just reach the emergency stop cord - 

But what was the point.

"How long have you been here?" Alex asked instead.

"Few minutes." Yassen gave him the ghost of a smile. "Looked like you needed the sleep."

Alex rolled his eyes, trying to ignore the nagging feeling it had been Yassen he'd been trying to reach in his dream. 

"Yeah, cause it'd be a shame to die tired," he muttered.

"You think I'm going to kill you?" Yassen asked mildly.

Alex looked at him, wearily determined. "I'm not just handing it over. You want it, you’ll have to take it."

"What are we talking about again?" murmured Yassen, with a quirk of the lips. Alex frowned.

"What?"

"Nothing. Give up, Alex. Why throw your life away over something that means nothing to you. Are you so eager to die?"

"I'm - so tired." 

Alex wondered where the words had come from. He'd vaguely intended to say something about 'duty' or 'trust', but somehow he found they meant less to him than the idea of a freshly laundered bed right now.

But he wouldn’t give in. Not to Yassen. He wouldn’t be weak.

The Russian was looking at him consideringly.

"You're in no fit state to stop me taking that bag Alex."

"If you leave me alive you know I'll come after you."

"Yes." Yassen looked away. "You will, won’t you."

Outside, fields flicked past unregarded. Inside, they sat a while in silence. Alex made no move to escape. Yassen made no move to take the bag.

"If you're waiting for me to fall asleep again - " Alex started eventually.

Yassen gave a short laugh. "If I wanted you unconscious little one, I wouldn’t have to wait for that."

"Then what are you waiting for?" Alex demanded in a low voice. "Because it doesn't appear to be the scintillating nature of the conversation."

Yassen stared distantly at his hands, resting in his lap. 

"There are two further stops on this line," he said neutrally. "Waiting at the last one is a - select, shall we say - group of men working for the erstwhile owner of the technology currently residing in your bag."

Alex shrugged, said nothing.

"They'll kill you Alex," Yassen continued quietly. "They'll kill you and they'll take the processor and it will all have been for nothing."

Alex looked up then, defiantly. " _You'll_ take the processor," he objected.

"The difference is, I'm willing to offer you your life for it Alex."

They stared at each other, one torn and mistrustful, the other not - quite - pleading.

"How did you even know I was on this train?" Alex asked, stalling for time.

"There were two possibilities. Groups were sent to the end of both lines, despite me telling them you were on the other one." Yassen looked briefly irritated.

"Why would you do that?" Alex frowned, curious, but Yassen just shrugged.

"Why should I let anyone else collect the fee for finding you?" he said in a bored tone.

"I dreamed about you," Alex said suddenly.

"Really?" Yassen raised an eyebrow, amused at the sudden change in tack.

"Yeah. I was - trying to find you."

"Guess it worked," Yassen murmured and Alex gave him a look. Relented.

"There was this beach, too. It was nice. I think - you were there, as well."

"I seem to have been on your mind a lot lately."

"Lot of things have," Alex objected defensively.

"I know a beach," said Yassen, glancing away out of the other window. "If it's beaches you want." 

"Kind of beach you know, probably infested with sharks and killer jellyfish," Alex grumbled. "I'm not coming with you Yassen, forget it."

The next station was announced over the tannoy, and both tensed imperceptibly.

"Last chance, Alex."

\--

Fifteen minutes later when the train pulled into the terminus, the occupants of the last carriage were startled to find their way off blocked by a group of armed men. Men who appeared unreasonably angry at finding no-one but a nun and a couple in their eighties on board.

Their mood was not improved by the stammered description of the two quiet young men who had alighted at the previous station.

\--


End file.
